JBIG-KIT implements a highly effective data compression algorithm for
bi-level high-resolution images such as fax pages or scanned
documents.

JBIG-KIT provides a portable library of compression and decompression
functions with a documented interface that you can very easily include
into your image or document processing software. In addition, JBIG-KIT
provides ready-to-use compression and decompression programs with a
simple command line interface (similar to the converters found in Jef
Poskanzer's PBM graphics file conversion package).

New in version 2.0 is an additional 'lightweight' version of the jbig
library, named jbig85. This implements only the T.85 profile of the
the full standard in the ITU-T recommendation, but is far smaller 
and uses much less memory while encoding. See the homepage for more
details: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/jbigkit/

JBIG-KIT implements the specification

  International Standard ISO/IEC 11544:1993 and ITU-T Recommendation
  T.82(1993), "Information technology - Coded representation of picture
  and audio information - progressive bi-level image compression",
  <http://www.itu.ch/itudoc/itu-t/rec/t/t82_23822.html>,

which is commonly referred to as the "JBIG standard". JBIG (Joint
Bi-level Image experts Group) is the committee which developed this
international standard for the lossless compression of images using
arithmetic coding. Like the well-known compression algorithms JPEG and
MPEG, also JBIG has been developed and published by the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) (see also <http://www.iso.ch/> and
<http://www.itu.ch/>).
